Teddy Bear
by Pumpkinshota
Summary: The night of their adventure through the Curious Village leads Professor Layton and Luke into a dark alley... or rather, the Professor leads them there...


The night was fairly quiet here in the rather curious village that Professor Layton and his apprentice, Luke Triton, a brown haired 13 year old boy, had travelled to all the way from London. There was hardly a cloud to obscure the wonderful sight of the billions, if not trillions of tiny specks of light floating in the night sky above. On top of the wonderful sight above the brown haired, capped boy and his mentor, the weather outside was simply perfect, around 73 degrees Fahrenheit; a warm summer night.

The pair had reached the curious little village just that afternoon and, nearly as soon as arriving, they had already been thrown into a series of things to do, from helping to lower the bridge just to get into the town to having to catch a devilish cat for the witch of a lady that Luke, personally, half suspected to be the murderer of the that Simon Reinhold fellow. It was night time now and they were still investigating around in order to see if they could gather any more information about the murder and the behavioral patterns of the people here at this time rather than day.

Of course, the Professor had a slightly different plan in mind for this night, rather than investigating for the entire duration of it. With his ever so charming, gentleman-like smile, he turned to Luke, who had been by his side for nearly the entire time today, and placed a hand upon the boy's shoulder. Luke looked up at the much taller Professor and smiled happily, his bright blue eyes shimmering with something that could only be described as true innocence. Yes, as bright as the boy was, because he was indeed quite bright what with being able to solve difficult puzzles given some time, he still maintained that childlike innocence that adults could never have again upon reaching adulthood; it was quite a special thing to have since it lasts for such a short amount of time.

The Professor cleared his throat quietly and said in a rather low voice so that only Luke could hear him, "My boy… I think we may be able to find more hints to our investigation over in that alley…I'm sure of it!"

Luke hummed thoughtfully for a moment as he considered the possibility of their finding something useful for their investigation in the alley, "Professah, it is awfully dark down there… how will we find anything when we can't even see where we're going?"

The Professor smiled, Luke was indeed quite bright and always saw problems that they faced near immediately. Without saying anything else, the Professor set down his trunk that he always carried about and opened it up, a quiet 'Clicking' sound of the clasps coming undone being heard for only a moment. With a bit of rummaging around, he extracted a flashlight and held it out to Luke, who took it and examined it as if it held some sort of deep secret while the Professor closed up his case.

As soon as the Professor straightened up and turned to him, Luke switched on the flashlight and delved into the alley previously indicated, the older male following behind him with his smile still evident.

It goes without saying; Luke scanned the entire alley before he reached the dead end wall without so much as finding even a hint coin.

With a somewhat annoyed huff over not finding anything at all, he turned to the Professor and said in a somewhat loud voice, "Professah! There's nothing here! Are you sure this is the right place to be looking?"

The Professor's smile turned rather devious, in way that was quite unlike him in any other circumstance and stepped forward toward the boy, his footsteps thudding rather loudly behind him. Luke had a look of confusion upon his features as the professor came toward him, and that confusion turned to a mix of fear at the Professor's expression. Something was definitely off and it scared him just slightly. The professor never really looked at him that way, so the change was a bit odd.

"Professah…?" Luke backed up slightly, only to find that the wall behind him prevented him from going any further than that, and he gulped out of fear. Surely it was just the lighting, or his imagination running wild to give him the idea that the Professor was turning evil? Perhaps it was because it was so late at night and his weary mind was playing tricks upon him?

"Luke…" The way the Professor said his name sent chills up his spine; he was quite scared though nothing had actually happened yet. That was when everything turned around though, of course. The Professor reached into his jacket and Luke stared, unable to really do a whole lot else considering he was really too scared to move from that spot…

But then, the Professor brought out something completely unexpected! From within his jacket, he withdrew a brown teddy bear wearing a top hat; it was a collectable teddy bear that Luke had been searching all over to buy back in London! Luke gasped and stared at the teddy bear as the Professor smiled rather happily and handed it over to him. Had the Professor really gone through all the trouble just to get him something he had wanted for a long time?

"P-professah… is… is this for m-me?" he said in a quiet voice, suddenly feeling bad that he'd thought his mentor was going to hurt him, or something ridiculous like that!

The Professor tipped his hat, his smile turning to a rather pleased one as he said to Luke, "Gentlemen never make a scene in public… I thought it would be… best to take you someplace secluded in case you became emotional over it…"

The Professor's assumption that Luke would be emotional over the gift was definitely spot on, because the boy's eyes welled up with tears of joy and he flung his arms around the older male in a tight hug as if his life depended upon it. It was almost silly that such a small gift could bring such happiness to one child, but it was almost refreshing, too. The pair stayed like that for a short while, simply hugging until Luke moved away and used his sleeves to wipe his eyes clear of any left over tears.

"Th-thank you, Professah…" Luke smiled brightly at the Professor, his young heart still fluttering with joy from the wonderful gift. 

The Professor remained looking pleased and rather happy, "Any time, my boy… After all, you are my number one apprentice…~"

Without much further chatter, the Professor lead the both of them out of the alley and back to the streets of the curious village, gaining a few suspicious looks as they exited the closed off space. The fact that Luke's face was tear-stained really didn't help those looks out much at all… It was almost as if they thought the Professor had done something horribly bad to the brown haired boy, but dare not speak it…

It didn't matter, though, the night was still fine and their hearts were content for the moment, all thanks to a little teddy bear.


End file.
